"Nowadays, any country that is willing to pursue an independent foreign policy clearly defines for itself that its air space needs protection," Igor Korotchenko, head of a Russian think tank in charge of analyzing the world arms trade, told a news conference on Friday.

Egypt is "interested in creating a reliable system of air defense as precision weapons, cruise missiles and strike aviation are chiefly used in modern wars," he said.

"Egyptian military top brass have made a number of purchases and consider a possibility to buy modern Russian air defense systems and surface-to-air missile systems," Korotchenko said. "Our state-of-the-art air defense systems surpass considerably the US analogues. That’s why Egypt conducts strategic investment in its security for the coming 30 to 40 years."

At the same time, the expert said that Russia’s supplies to Egypt were underway.

"Taking into consideration a delicate component of this type of cooperation, certainly I will not elaborate on the item identification or on the number of sealed deals but I can say that a common portfolio of potential contracts totals over $2 billion, according to experts’ estimates," he said.